The 1920s were boom years for the Hunan work. Adequate
support and Keller's forceful leadership assured that fact. The
size of the facility allowed room for additional growth and the . 54 potential for seven hundred and fifty students. The Chinese staff numbered approximately fifteen to twenty by 1933. 55
Curriculum included Bible Survey, Doctrine, Old and New Testament,
Hermeneutics, Homiletics, English and Greek. 56 Music courses
were also offered. The full program took two years to complete
and H.B.I. offered the _equivalent of today's junior college
Associate Arts degree. Each entering student had to minimally
possess a secondary or middle school education before being
accepted into the program - according to missionary William Ebeling 57 who served H.B.I. some years later. Academic courses continued
to be taught in conjunction with the experience of the evangelistic
bands - as Keller's ideal combination of the academic and practical.
Mr. and Mrs. Ch~rles A. Roberts joined Dr. and Mrs. Keller
about 1922. Roberts, a graduate of Fort Wayne Bible College,
accepted the post of business manager and assistant superintendent. Following the death of his wife, Roberts remarried - Grace - and
"
. .
had three children at Hunan. Although Keller and Roberts were
deeply involved in their administrative duties, they each carried
some classload instruction. 58
Keller desired to add further
scholarship to the missionary staff, and thus Everett F. Harrison
was appointed to the Institute in 1931.
Harrison was a recent
M.A. graduate from Princeton in Old Testament Semantic Studies. - The son of missionary parents in China, Harrison observed that
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